I'd be sort of sad if I had to start my annual year-end film detrius thread here.

And some won't. I don't have a handle on the state of foreign-film distrib in the UK, but many of their choices on that list in past years have still never, ever been released in the US. So they most certainly are being kept from the ever more miniscule number of punters who are interested in world cinema that doesn't have an easy genre hook.

Philippe Garrel's Regular Lovers (two years old) is opening in NYC next week -- he's been making features since the '60s, and I'm pretty sure this is his first commercial release in America.

14. Southland Tales (Richard Kelly, Germany/U.S.)* 53

UH

i mean that so has a distribution deal right?

Also, directors of cult movies starring Jake Gyllenhaal are much higher on the arthouse foodchain than, say, Raul Ruiz or Tsai ming-Liang.

kelly's film will see the light of day in 1x form or another -- trimmed maybe but that's not unusual. cannes is like a test audience of rich media folk.

Bounces back from being "only" nineteenth on the FC poll to slam into ninth-place on the IndieWire nee VV poll.

http://indiewire.com/critics2006/

Neither Departed nor Inland Empire at #1 (though the latter feel within a 10-point margin of the former, good enough for #3 and #4 respectively). The blue ribbon goes to Lazarescu ... presuming that the voting body is more or less the same as it was in the VV poll days, that has to count as the most surprising winner in the poll's history, in my opinion.

I didn't think charges of obscurity/annoyance vs Lynch would disturb the VV poll's core given their past love for the likes of Safe.

http://ballot.indiewire.com/ballots/display_ballot/127

Wish I had caught up with Broken Sky, I feel in my gut the DVD may not appear til summer.

I'm pleased with the high finish of Nolte in Supporting Perf, who would be my runaway choice at the moment.

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/criticspicks06/movies/

I've never been a big Melville fan, but I don't remotely get the Army of Shadows mania. I recall maybe two scenes from it.

Eric or Morbs -- seen The Painted Veil yet? It hasn't opened here yet. At present I'm deciding whether to catch The History Boys or re-screen Withnail & I; doesn't Richard Griffiths give the same perf?

enrique might want to glance at all 200 of these:

http://ballot.indiewire.com/ballots/scores#best_undist

(ie libs are exulting that the Dems are now the party in Congress who will do nothing about Iraq)

I can't seem to find out; also the NY opening has been bumped to Jan 19.

(also, a '50s lib is a radical in today's environment, just sayin)

The Good Shepherd does have its supporters (Cheshire, Armond):

http://daily.greencine.com/archives/002935.html

Also, the world should remain centrist or skewed to the right if it means Chris Marker will continue to make bemusedly outraged movies.

(btw, Eric, I like the first 80 minutes of All That Jazz)

That's great to hear, but I sort of think the last 10 are what pushes it into insane, embarrassing greatness.

Why is Nicholson taking a beating for "showboating" in The Departed when that's more diverting than Damon's vanilla corruption or everything embarrassing about the Vera Farmiga scenes? This William Monahan guy is great at the local color and alpha-swearing, characters not so much.

I don't have a problem w/ Farmiga (still haven't seen Down to the Bone), but the whole damn part is unplayable. The shrink in IF wasn't sleeping with both of them, was she? And if Marty fought for the ending, that includes the crowd-pleaser (relatively speaking) of offing Damon?

Think of this film with Wahlberg and Ryan Gosling in the leads. Not all the problems solved, but most.

The atrophying of DiCaprio's talents is one of the tragedies of the last decade in American film (or maybe he just wasn't versatile to begin with). One of the great teenage actors ever, but since turning 21 he's seemed lost in the school play save for Catch Me If You Can. Think of what young Kirk Douglas could do with a line like "The only thing more fulla shit than a cop is a cop on TV." When Leo says it you can hear the keys clacking.

Message to Mark Wahlberg in winning polls/awards for this rather than I Heart Huckabees: BE MORE ONE-NOTE. (After the splendid verbal soul-rape of Leo, it was push Repeat.)

Leo was never versatile. Even as a young actor his talent was for acting feral (...Gilbert Grape excepted), and he's gotten better at it at the cost of several yards of charisma. What does Scorsese see in him -- how my generation copped all its cockiness from watching De Niro's mirror scene in Taxi Driver without living first?

(Alfred, is yr family sleeping late too?) Yes, Baldwin never better (not sure how much that's sayin).

Merry detrius Christmas

I'm debating whether to finish playing Miles' "He Loved Him Madly" or to watch Melinda Dillon doing her show-mommy-how-the-piggies-eat scene in A Christmas Story.

He did win the VV poll for I Hart Huckabees, tho.

'the departed' is so much better than 'infernal affairs'.

I presume you don't think DiCaprio and Damon flat-out suck, then?

IA's form fits its content, while Scorsese pouring 150 minutes of his operatic naturalism on a blatantly dreamworld plot, hinged on the depth of two actors who can only get deep through lightness (as in Catch Me If You Can and Stuck on You), inevitably leads to ludicrousness. The jarring rat joke at the end suggests that the whole thing should've been done as a black comedy a la (the truly great) Prizzi's Honor.

The Dropkick Murphys count as a corny musical interlude.